Graham Road Elementary

School Information

School Name: Graham Road Elementary School         
School Address: 3036 Graham Road, Falls Church, VA, 22042
School Phone: 571.226.2700
School Fax: 571.226.2797
Principal: Terry J Dade
Principal email: tjdade1@fcps.edu
Web Address: http://www.fcps.edu/GrahamRoadES/

Demographics

Number of Students: 406
Number Eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch: 266 (78%)
Percent of Limited English Proficient: 46%
Percent of Special Education: 14%
Racial/Ethnic Percentages:

• White: 6%
• Black: 14%
• Hispanic: 60%
• Asian/Pacific Island: 17%
• Other: 2%

 

Student Achievement Data:

	Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Grade 3	06-07	07-08	08-09	09-10
Math	91/89	92/89	87/86	77/83
Reading	87/65	74/84	89/89	80/92

 

	Percent of Students Passing State Assessment (school/state)
Grade 6	06-07	07-08	08-09	09-10
Math	95/60	96/68	97/73	100/77
Reading	97/84	100/85	98/86	100/88

Please comment on any aspect of the data that you believe is particularly significant.

Our data proves that culturally diverse children who live in poverty and speak a language other than English at home can achieve at high academic levels. Although not shown above, the percentage of our students in Grades 4-6 scoring in the Advanced Pass range has greatly increased in both Math and Reading over the past four years.

When there are significant drops in SOL scores, as there was for the Spring 2008 Grade 3 Reading test, teachers and administrators analyze for possible causes and then redeploy resources to support teachers and students in the relevant grade levels.       

              
Please present additional information that indicates your efforts to build a professional learning community have had a positive impact on students and/or teachers.

We know that the establishment and sustaining of content-specific grade-level PLCs over the past four years has been the “silver bullet” of our school improvement efforts.

 

Please elaborate upon strategies you have found to be effective in any of the following areas:

1. Monitoring student learning on a timely basis.

We monitor all student learning frequently using common assessments created by grade-level teams, Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA), Developmental Spelling Inventory, Phonemic Awareness Test, Math Reasoning Assessment, running records and miscue analysis. We also look at informal data that includes anecdotal records, notes from team meetings, observations of classroom practice and reflections on all of the above.

After we administer assessments, we construct data grids, listing individual questions/standards/subtests as well as responses/scores for each student. The data grids stimulate conversation about what students can and cannot do and about which instructional techniques were or were not effective. We notice which questions and/or standards we struggled to teach. These professional conversations help solidify what and how to teach so that our students will learn.

 

2. Creating systems of intervention to provide students with additional time and support for learning.

“The single most important endeavor that I believe impacted my students most powerfully and directly was the time and intensity of instruction, particularly extra instruction.” (Graham Road Sixth Grade Teacher)

At Graham Road, the following interventions are used to give our students the extra time they often require to master grade-level material. During the regular school day, some grade levels reserve an hour per week for remediation/enrichment. Classroom and resource teachers “double or triple dip” targeted students for reading instruction instead of having them work independently. Teachers reteach troublesome items from common assessments using explicit think alouds to model the accessing of background knowledge and other active reading strategies. Support staff members work with primary struggling readers throughout the week. In addition, support staff members work with struggling or high-performing student mathematicians during the math block.

Staff members also use beyond-the-bell time extensively to support student learning. Offerings include upper grade math and reading intervention and homework club. Targeted first and second graders receive extra reading, math or phonemic awareness instruction, and kindergartens engage in language play and phonemic awareness activities.

3. Building the capacity of teachers to work as members of high performing collaborative teams who focus the efforts of their team on improved learning for students.

The professional development program at Graham Road is strategic and research based. Each grade level and the entire school function as professional learning communities (PLCs). Grade-level PLCs meet to focus on language arts and mathematics each week for 60-75 minutes. We also meet approximately once a month for whole-school learning. Based on student performance data, teacher leaders and administrators make decisions regarding topics of study at weekly team meetings, school-wide meetings, and for selected offsite opportunities. For example, when mathematics test scores lagged behind reading scores, teacher leaders conducted monthly “Math Camps” during which teachers studied content and instruction.

One or more of our reading teachers teaches an after-school course that covers each aspect of the balanced literacy framework, for teachers new to the school. Because our teachers are trained and coached in all components of the framework, they are equipped to provide our students with many opportunities to become successful readers and writers.

Most of our staff development is done on site with resource teachers and an instructional coach supporting colleagues in PLC meetings and individual conferences. For over four years, teacher leaders have conducted numerous book studies on current findings in the field, including A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Words Their Way, Getting Started-Reculturing Schools to Become Professional Learning Communities, Reading with Meaning,, Strategies that Work, Classroom Management that Works. Guided Reading, Guiding Reading and Writing, Kids Left Behind, and A Whole New Mind. During the 2008-09 school year, all teachers in Grades 2-6 will implement vocabulary instruction as outlined in Marzano’s Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement.

 

List any awards and recognition garnered by your school

- 2008 Blue Ribbon School, September 2008
Graham Road is one of ten schools nominated by the Virginia Department of Education to be a U.S. Department of Education 2008 Blue Ribbon School. The award will be bestowed October 20-21, 2008.

- Governor’s Award for Educational Excellence, January 2008
Graham Road earned the VIP Excellence Award having met all state and federal accountability benchmarks for at least two consecutive years and having made significant progress toward goals for increasing academic achievement and enriched educational opportunity as stipulated by Virginia’s Governor Tim Kaine and the Board of Education.

- School of Note, January 2008
Graham Road and its instructional program is featured in the Fairfax County Public School’s publication Leveraging Knowledge, as a school showing strength in reducing the achievement gap.